Agrarian and Peasant Parties in the Czech Republic - Masarykova ...

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The agrarian element was officially eliminated from the Czechoslovak political life on domestic territory. No peasant party was allowed to exist during the communist era in Czechoslovakia in 1948-1989. Some former members of the agrarian party were active in the anti-communist resistance movement at the end of the 1940´s and in the first half of the 1950´s when the communists brutally collectivized the countryside. The collectivization and the foundation of the United Agricultural Cooperatives changed the social structure and the identity of the Czech countryside significantly. Small parts of the agrarians survived in exile in western countries. The Republican Party in Exile (Republikánská strana v exilu) was founded in Paris in 1948, having its strongest base in the USA (Trapl 2005: 1348-1349), where it had close relations to some conservative parts of the American Republican Party. A small group that split from this party and was called the Czechoslovak Republican Party – Agrarian (#eskoslovenská strana republikánská - agrární) was founded at the beginning of the 1950´s (Trapl 2005: 1349). However, despite these efforts the representation of agrarians within the Czechoslovak exile bodies was relatively weak. 2. Development since 1989 Industrial tradition of Czech lands, inherited from the period of Habsburg Empire, was further reinforced in the period of communist rule, so effectively assisting in marginalization of agriculture as major tool of economic advancement. Collectivization of family farms and extensive agricultural properties, which took place in late 1940’s and in the 1950’s, helped to create agricultural system consisting almost exclusively of common agricultural cooperatives. However, immediately after the regime change in November 1989 we could have witnessed gradual re-emergence of private farming, which was increasingly reflected also in the political arena. In the first months after the fall of the communist regime there was possible to identify high hopes farmers and agricultural interests may become a relevant part of party system, as they had been in the interwar Czechoslovakia. References to the Agrarian Party were not uncommon, usually indicating democratic environment shoud be favourable to political actions which would represent interests of rural areas of the Czech Republic and of those whose activities are related to agriculture. However, although parties representing these interests initially did achieve a success of a kind, in several years they lost any influence. While searching for corresponding developments and reasons of the failure, we can present four stages of agrarian parties representation’s evolution since 1989: 5
a) 1990-1991 – in the early months after the regime change there serious chances it may be possible to reintroduce agrarian parties (or agrarian party family for that matter) as relevant segment of the party system; these hopes seemed to be confirmed by electoral results b) 1991-1992 – since the first half of 1991 parties representing agrarian interests (primarily the Agrarian Party /Zem$d$lská strana – ZS/) kept trying to present themselves as part of broader political area, focused on predominantly regional and environmental issues in general, and became major element in a coalition called Liberal-Social Union (Liberáln$-sociální unie – LSU) c) 1992-1996 – period of gradual decline of relevance of agrarian parties, related to several general developments in the Czech party system and some other factors mentioned above, namely low numbers of voters who have perceived agrarian parties as best mediators of their interests d) after 1996 – failure in 1996 election marks an end of any real aspirations to present parties representing agrarian interests as relevant part of the Czech party system; consequently, since this year agrarian parties as relevant actors have disappeared Following this division into major stages, we can analyze their respective details and see most important reasons of marginal position of all Czech agrarian parties. In the first months after the regime change in November 1989 it seemed there might be a relevant potential for parties defending interest of those who are related to agriculture – between December 1989 and March 1990 we could have witnessed establishment of seven parties that declared their determinacy to act as representatives of the Czech countryside. From hindsight we can say by far the most important of these parties was the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party (#eskoslovenská strana zem$d$lská – #SSZ), which was founded in January 13, 1990, and which intended to offer broadly conceived representation of all voters that are in any way related to the countryside and agriculture. Despite this self-identification the party was understood as a political expression of interests of co-operative farming (Mareš, Pšeja 2005: 1605-6). However, such a label should have been more appropriate for another party – Political Movement of Agricultural Cooperatives’ Members, which was founded in March 1990 to defend interests of a particular segment of agricultural workers. Besides these two parties there were five more parties subscribing to rural issues and countryside in general – Republican Party of Czechoslovakian Countryside (Republikánská strana !eskoslovenského venkova /RS#V/), Agrarian Party of the Civic Forum (from December 1989 till March 1990 called Czechoslovakian Urban and Rural Agrarian Party /#eskoslovenská strana zem$d$lská m$st a venkova – #SZMV/), Free Peasants’ Party (Svobodná rolnická strana /SRS/), Party of the Czech Countryside (Strana !eského venkova /S#V/) and finally Party of Moravian Countryside (Strana moravského venkova 6
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